„Celestial” Snapshots: Moral Economic Revisitations of János Kornai’s The Socialist System

Zsófia Hajnal

Keywords: section theme: Theory of socialism and capitalism

Abstract: Significant parts of the work of the great economist and economic visionary János Kornai function as a magnifying glass in economic theory, philosophy and history. Kornai has examined economic systems and system-mixes with substantial detail, for then being able to focus his audiences’ attention on the most relevant and critical aspects of them. One of Kornai’s masterpieces, The Socialist System – a book that has recently passed its thirty-year publishing anniversary milestone – is such a political economic lens on communism. I am attempting a concise conversion of this magnifying glass – to apply a Galileian metaphor – into an economic telescope. In other words, I am adding another economic lens – that of moral economics – to the Kornaian viewpoints. In a short analysis going through various dimensions of The Socialist System, I am coupling Kornai’s thoughts with moral economic ideas, both from the classical and the contemporary moral economy streams. The goal with this exercise of respectfully refreshing a toolkit and style of economic analysis is to then gaze into, and partially describe a potential multitude, or spectra of economic systems, which may manifest in econodiversity.